Locals protesting the Perth Freight Link.
Camera IconLocals protesting the Perth Freight Link. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Roe 8 won’t create jobs

Steve Kepert, BictonMelville Gazette

IN response to Tom McGowan’s letter (Jobs will be lost, November 8) allow me to assure Tom that I could care less about jobs.

In fact, I’m so confident I care more about reducing unemployment than both the Liberal and Labor parties, it’s precisely why I’m not one of them.

Putting aside for a moment that both those parties are responsible for the increasing casualisation of the workforce, adding occupations to the Skilled Occupation List (under which 457 visas are granted) for jobs which aren’t in shortage, ignoring spiralling under-employment, creating hidden employment, making it easier to sack new workers and generally squandering the boom, the jobs that might arise from the Perth Freight Link are dwarfed by the jobs which could be created from building an outer harbour in Kwinana.

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It’s estimated by an alliance of six local governments that 23,000 direct jobs and 50,000 indirect jobs can be created from the construction of an outer harbour in Kwinana.

Efficiency is the key. It’s about prudently spending our taxes on infrastructure which offers maximum benefits for cost.

Clearly, the Perth Freight Link, as it is known, is so very inefficient, especially when it doesn’t achieve any real objectives and won’t create efficiencies anywhere near that of moving freight by rail and with a port with modern freight-handling facilities.

Also, when speaking of jobs that exist from public expenditure, it’s worth remembering the thousands of public servants who have already lost their jobs because of the financial mismanagement of the Barnett government.

Their jobs would still exist for a fraction of the $1.9 billion it costs to build a road that doesn’t even cross the Swan River.

STEVE KEPERT, Bicton.